


i'm not okay (and i'm learning to move on)

by anomalousGreenhorn



Series: this horrible nightmare, the horrible truth [1]
Category: The School for Good and Evil - Soman Chainani
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Break Up, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, a lot of big fat swear words, also minor nicola/sophie but im not tagging it because that's not rly the point of this, gonna be real nicola is my go-to for venting, hort is a total bitch in this fyi, hurt and eventual comfort, minor willam/bogden, nastyyy break ups, nicola is big big bi, possibly ooc nicola
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-12 11:39:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19131283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anomalousGreenhorn/pseuds/anomalousGreenhorn
Summary: “Are you okay? You look like you’re gonna cry.”He doesn’t offer to help her with the vase or deliver her the slightest shred of comfort. He just states the obvious, as per usual.“I’m—” She’s okay, she’s okay.I’m okay, I’m perfectly okay, why the fuck wouldn't I be okay?“I’m— no. I’m not. I’m not okay.”——ratther: Nicola undergoes the stages of grief.





	i'm not okay (and i'm learning to move on)

He does it through a text message.

 

> _were over_

It takes Nicola an embarrassingly long amount of time to translate _were_ to _we’re_. It doesn’t hit her in that first moment, so she whips out her favorite comic book and re-reads all ten issues for the sixth time before it fully sinks in.

~~Hort has… he’s _over_ . _We’re_ over… ~~

It can’t _possibly_ be true. There _has_ to— no, there _must_ be some mistake…

She snatches her phone off the bedside table. The text is still there, three hours old, laughing in her face. She opens her iMessage app and stares at it until she’s one-hundred percent sure she’s read it correctly.

 

> _were over_

Hort _broke up with her_ —

But maybe there _was_ a mistake.

She types: _what are you talking about?_ Then she reads it over in her head and imagines her future conversation with Hort and decides that sounds way too overbearing, so she deletes it and starts over again, and again, and again.

 

> _what do you mean?_
> 
> _are you serious?_
> 
> _are you kidding me?_
> 
> _“we’re” or “were”?_

_fuck. no. fuck no._ fuck fuck fuck shit shit shit shit shit no no no _why_

She feels tears surfacing and she shoves them back down into the hell they came from. This isn’t the time for tears. There won’t _be_ a time for tears, because this is all just a huge mistake or a dumb joke and even though she just spent another hour attempting to not cry while forming a coherent response, Nicola _will_ have this misunderstanding rectified.

Thirteen minutes later, she texts Hort a simple _what?_ and waits another five minutes, swallowing back her tears, and when her phone doesn’t _ring_ or _ding_ once she forces herself out of bed and tries to ignore the fact that it’s already noon and she hasn’t even had breakfast.

She finds her brothers, Gus and Gagan, out in the kitchen-slash-living room. Neither greet her. Gus is passed out on the couch, headphones blasting awful hip-hop into his ears. Gagan, on the other hand, is playing some shooter game so intently on the television that he doesn’t even seem to notice her come in. They’re both still dressed in sleepwear.

Nicola tears her eyes away from them and tries not to think about how different things were when their mother was around and their father was alive as she pours herself some cereal. Then she props herself up on the counter and eats her food without milk, thinking of nothing but the pirate skeleton man Gagan’s just shot down in cold blood.

Later, as she’s cleaning up her meal, she clumsily drops the beautiful vase Dot gifted her for her last birthday and she lets out a whimper when it shatters.

“Nic?” The noise must have knocked Gagan out of his trance. Nicola turns and finds him watching her with a concerned eye, the _GAME OVER_ screen flashing behind him. “Are you okay? You look like you’re gonna cry.”

He doesn’t offer to help her with the vase or deliver her the slightest shred of comfort. He just states the obvious, as per usual.

“I’m—” She’s okay, she’s okay _. I’m okay, I’m perfectly okay, why the fuck wouldn't I be okay?_ “I’m— no. I’m not. I’m not okay.”

She darts out of there and back to her bedroom like a woman on a mission, and she actually _expects_ Gagan to come running after her, but there’s nothing. Within a minute, the sounds of guns firing and consoles clicking returns.

One last time, as she bites her lips so violently it bleeds, she checks her phone. Her heart does somersaults when she catches a glimpse of a pop-up notification, then shatters when she sees it’s a reminder to buy more MaxiPads she set a week ago.

She sits up on her bed, shaking. She tries breathing exercises, and on the second breath, she collapses and lets everything out.

She cries because she isn’t in control of her life, then cries because she feels pathetic for crying, then cries some more because her brothers don’t give a shit about her and her mom doesn’t give a shit about her and her boyfriend doesn't give a shit about her. And that brings on a new wave of snotty tears because her _boyfriend broke up with her_.

_Hort_ broke up with her.

How could _he_ —? How could he _do_ this to her, when the memory of watching her father die in front of the piano is still fresh in her mind, when her brothers are too caught up in their own misery to care about her’s, when all her friends are still going to the prestigious Catholic high school for and she’s going to some run-down, nearby public school because her lazy-ass “legal guardian” Gagan can’t be bothered to get the fuck up in the morning a work a real job.

This can’t be happening. Hort can’t be breaking up with her over text. Not now, and not just over her transferring schools.

She checks her phone again. Nothing. She opens it and swipes up for missed notifications. Nothing. She opens the messaging app and there’s _nothing_ , not from Hort, not from Agatha, not from anyone.

A small, bitchy voice in the back of her brain asks, _why would there be?_

This is it. This is the end. Her life is over. Ruined. _Done for_.

Though her knees are weak, Nicola manages to stand and lock her bedroom door before returning to her bed where she sobs into her pillow until two.

* * *

Three days pass. She works her handful of jobs hideously because she can’t stop thinking about him. She’s glued to her phone, hoping, _praying_ all this crying has been in vain and that at any moment, Hort will call and confess his undying love for her.

The call never comes.

(But she will not call him. She will not visit him. She's not going to text him again because that would only prove that she's the same friendless loser she was in eighth grade, and that nothing has changed. She needs to believe her life is better now. She just _has_ to.)

Her brothers don’t seem to notice her abnormal behavior, which makes her sad. Or maybe they do notice, and they don’t care. That thought makes her cry.

She’s been doing a year’s worth of crying these last few days.

* * *

The text comes in at eleven twenty-three P.M. five days after the first.

 

> _are you blind? were done nicola_

She scrambles to text him back, spilling a glass of water in the process.

 

> _what do you mean, hort? are you breaking up with me?_

She regrets it as soon as she sends it. Too much — it was too much. She sounds so desperate (which she is, but he doesn’t need to know that). The thirty seconds she has to wait for the one-word response is excruciating.

 

> _yes_

And, frantically, she asks him to call her, which he doesn’t, and she won’t because she refuses to be the clingy ex-girlfriend, _ex-girlfriend_ , _ex-girlfriend_ —

The tears don’t stop until one in the morning.

* * *

Nicola sleeps through most of Saturday. It takes approximately no time for her to remember what's happened.

She's single.

And not just that, but Hort broke up with her. Over a text.

And it's two P.M. on May 25th.

The tears are there, faintly, caressing her cheeks as she goes through her morning routine with the enthusiasm of a zombie.

This was supposed to be the best summer of her life. She snagged her long-time crush, one of the best-looking boys in school, and had the best academic year of her life. She had plenty of friends that she’d made by merging with Hort’s crowd and became nearly as popular and well-liked as him; her grades soared, her parents were so proud of her, and they seemed to fight less and less. She had so much confidence; her life was perfect.

Hort was the best thing that had ever happened to her.

Just like that, it was all pulled out from underneath her. Her mom up and left one night. Her dad died of heart failure. Her brothers were still her brothers.

And Hort had left her.

He hadn't even properly broken up with her. She wasn't even worth a proper break up.

After finishing up in the bathroom, she grabs her nearly-dead phone off the bedside table. The first thing to pop up is her last conversation with Hort. She cringes as she deletes their chain of messages. She doesn't bother opening up the contacts app to delete or block him. She knows she doesn't have the guts to do it.

She switches over to her thread with Agatha Floros. They became relatively good friends after she started dating Hort, but Agatha’s not a big texter in general. Nicola immediately hits the _call_ button.

It goes to voicemail. She leaves a half-assed comment about wanting to talk or whatever. Hopefully she doesn't sound to broken.

Next she tries Hester Breger. Hester is a bit… _much_ , in every sense, but she's always come through as a friend when Nicola needed her.

The phone stops calling after two rings, as though someone on the other line rejected her call. Lovely. (She will not cry. _She will not cry_.)

She scrolls through the rest of her  ongoing conversations. It's mostly co-workers asking if she can take their shift. The few friends she talks with actively she's too self-conscious to dial — Dot’s known Hort longer, Anadil is Hort’s cousin, and Beatrix wouldn't be interested in her heterosexual lovers’ quarral.

So this is it, then. Her parents are gone. Her boyfriend is gone. Her friends are gone.

She falls onto the bed and cries the afternoon away.

* * *

The remainder of her weekend is spent reading books and re-reading the best ones, crying, eating whatever junk she can find in the cupboards, crying some more, sleeping, browsing the social medias she knows Hort doesn’t have, binging any show she can find on Netflix, and eventually getting off to one of the slutty characters in a book she doesn’t like too much.

(She hasn't done that in _months_.)

She opts out on doing anything Monday and Tuesday, work included. She unfortunately runs face-first into Gagan Tuesday evening while on the prowl for some Cheetos.

“Nicola, hey.” His eyes widen when he looks down at her. “Shit. You're a mess.”

“I was going for “fucking disaster”, but “mess” will do, I suppose,” she snaps as she shoves past him, toward the kitchen.

“ _Okay_ ,” he draws the last syllable out. “Uh, your boss called. She said you’ve been ditching work.”

_Glad_ someone _noticed_ , she thinks sarcastically. To Gagan, she nods. She purposely set her phone to silent and hid it in the back of her closet.

“Nicola, what's wrong with you? You're gonna get fired.”

And—

Oh.

That's it. That does it.

How _dare_ he?

How. fucking. _dare_. he.

“ _What's wrong with me_?” she screams, whipping around to face her brother. “I don't know, Gagan, take a guess. Take a fucking guess. Maybe it's because I just finished my sophomore year of fucking high school and I’m working five different full-time jobs to keep this place afloat? Or maybe it's because you won't so much as _try_ to find a job, let alone enroll to the community college. I don't know if you've noticed, brother, but you're not a kid anymore. You're my guardian. You're Gus’s guardian. You're required by fucking law to provide for us, and yet everyday I see your ass firmly planted to that torn-up couch in front of our decades-old T.V, not even taking notice of the fact that everything, _everyone_ is falling apart around you!”

He stares at her. Blinks. His face is completely unreadable, but she's not finished.

“Or, I don't know, maybe it's because Mamma is fucking gone, and Papa is fucking dead. Maybe it's because I’m going to Pine Hill High instead of St. Peter’s next year. Maybe it's because our seventeen-year-old-brother doesn't know what a fucking coup is. Maybe it's because I have no friends.” She takes a deep breath. “Maybe it's because my boyfriend _fucking_ left me like a _bitch_.”

Then she shuts down entirely. She has nothing left to say, and she slumps against the kitchen counter. Her stomach rumbles.

“Hort broke up with you?” Gagan asks almost instantly, like he’s programmed to do so. “Oh, _Nicola_.”

She’s done. She’s just fucking done.

She pushes herself onto her feet and stomps past her brother, zero Cheetos gained from her field trip. She stops in front of her door, spares a glance at Gagan, who hasn't moved from his spot.

“ _You_ ,” she growls, fucking _growls_ , “are the most pathetic excuse of an older brother that I could ever _hope_ to have.”

She slams her door shut and sleeps for the rest of the day.

* * *

Wednesday. Nine A.M.

Nicola’s spent ten days depressed and angry over a boy she dated for eight months.

(But it felt like an eternity.)

She thinks about everything. About all their texts, their conversations, their dates, their kisses…

(He was her first kiss.)

She wonders where she went wrong. What she did wrong. Why Hort would _do_ that to her.

She's shed so many tears over him. She swears then and there that it will be the first and last time she ever cries over a boy.

(A fucking boy. Can you imagine that? Nicola Elias, _her_ , crying over a boy.)

She checks her phone. Missed calls from work. A notification from Duolingo. Another reminder for those MaxiPads.

She apologizes to her bosses and her co-workers, says she’ll be back bright and early tomorrow, and she's only fired from two of her jobs because only the most desperate people work at a Wendy's, Burger King, and McDonald’s during the same lifetime.

* * *

Nicola dreams about kissing Hort that night. She's overwhelmed with all the best feelings.

In the morning, she's (still) depressed, and she beats any pretty mental image of Hort to a bloody pulp.

Eventually, she dreams about beating _him_ to a bloody pulp too.

* * *

Nicola fucking hates Hort Scourie.

She makes sure everyone knows it, to wear the motif with certainty.

Agatha’s (mostly) on her side about the break up, and Hester’s “thankful for another reason to bully Hort” (her words). Beatrix agrees that dating Hort was one of the worst mistakes of her life.

It's not as easy with everyone else, though. Anadil gets tired of hearing Nicola shit on her cousin, and eventually tells her to “get over it already”. Dot means her no harm, of course, but is still good friends with Hort, and sometimes talks so highly of him around Nicola that just she has to end the call right there.

Nicola vows to whoop Hort’s ass is she ever sees him again. Not that she has yet, for better or worse.

Summer carries on as usual. She works her jobs, pretends her brothers don't exist, and only occasionally cries.

She thinks about Hort every single day, even if she won't admit it to anyone. Everything reminds her of him, and he makes her sad, so she's sad most of the time.

At least it's _something_ is her day-to-day excuse for being depressed. At least she hasn't gone completely off into the deep end.

* * *

Going back to public school almost feels right in the end. Of course, every boy that meets her eye for too long, every green-eyed brunette, every weeb with a preference for that Anime with the hero school reminds Nicola of Hort, but she's alive.

She's alive. Maybe not living. But alive.

* * *

While tidying up the house one September morning, she finds an old picture of Hort and herself.

It's from the Fall Out Boy concert they went to see with Agatha and Hester at the very beginning of their relationship. She's taken aback by how happy she is in the photo — how she's beaming up into the selfie, her arm around Hort’s waist, thousands of fans surrounding them, all singing or dancing or kissing or just plain glad.

She had been so caught up in her infatuation with Hort that she hadn't cared that they could barely see the stage from their seat, or that the girls sitting behind them kept screaming lyrics in her ear, or that Agatha and Hester were paying zero attention to her. She was thrilled to be there, in his arms.

She throws the picture against her closet door and felt relieved to hear the glass shatter.

* * *

Gagan approaches her one day. She’d almost forgotten about his existence, in all honesty, and at first, anger overcomes her at the sight of him.

But he explains that for the last three months he's been working odd jobs, researching colleges, tutoring Gus. He’s taking some standard morning classes at the nearby university and he has a regular paycheck. He’s on his way to becoming manager at the Publix he works at and wants her to quit her jobs.

When she asks why, he says it's because she deserves a normal high school experience. That he wants her to cherish these years in a way he never did and wants her to prepare for the best future she can possibly have.

Then she asks why he took so long to tell her. He says it was because he was scared of her response.

* * *

Nicola decides to join Pine Hill’s co-ed rugby team.

She's played sports like soccer and volleyball on-and-off, and she was labeled something of a jock at St. Peter’s, but she's absolute rubbish at rugby, it turns out. Still, she sticks with it, because it will look good on her transcript and also because she needs friends.

Of course, everyone on the team already knows each other and she has a bit of a reputation as an “intimidating hawk” or something like that. Friend count: nada.

Then she meets a boy named Bogden at the second game. It's his first time playing sports, dead stop, so he “feels her”, as he likes to say.

They get along nicely. He’s funny, a bit cheeky, and she gets an opportunity to use her playful sarcasm at full-force.

At the next after-school practice, she meets Bogden’s boyfriend, Willam, who is just as sweetly charming. The three of them become a tight group very quickly.

The next time Dot calls and asks if Nicola’s made any friends, she's able to smile and say, _yes_ , she has.

* * *

She knew it would come up eventually. She has no choice but to return to St. Peter’s.

Luckily, it's for a rugby game, and she doesn't see anyone she knows, so that’s a plus, even if she does have to suffer the humiliation of losing to her old school.

Bogden and Willam — now scholars in Nicola’s past with St. Peter's and Hort — are understanding of this, and don't mind her showing up late to their after-game-Waffle-House-celebration-slash-mourning (the theme of the outing depends on the results of the game).

She explores the school, and no one stops her. All her old teachers are more than happy to see her, and one girl she recognizes but can't remember the name of says _hi_. It’s a Saturday morning as well as the day of the annual Fall Festival, so staff and students are abound.

A part of her wants to see Hort, and the other does not out of fear that she might be arrested for whatever she does when and if she sees him. She might beat him to death. She might cuss him out and give him a good slap. She might tackle him to the ground and kiss his face off (she hopes not). One thing she knows she won't do is casually walk past him.

As she makes her way to the mason jar display, she bumps into Sophie Lias, one of her old peers from St. Peter's as well as one of Hort’s ex-girlfriends.

Before she can stop herself, she blurts out, “Hi, Sophie!”

Sophie visually recoils, as though shocked to see her, but manages a polite smile. They don't exactly have the best of histories, though — Sophie was known to write offense words on Nicola’s locker with lipstick before she started dating Hort — so it’s understandable. Maybe.

Not really.

But, still, when she says, “Hi, Nicola. How are you?”, Nicola can’t help be feel relaxed.

They end up having a delightful conversation, talking about school and summer and future plans and all sorts of stuff, but not once does Sophie mention Hort. It's almost as if she's forgotten he exists. Nicola doesn't blame her.

Afterward, though, at Waffle House, she must ramble on about said conversation for far too long, because at the end of her spiel Willam and Bogden are exchanging knowing looks. And not even in the way cutesy couples do when they tape into their telepathic link and read each others’ minds.

“What?” Her head darts back and forth between them. “Why are you guys looking at each other like that?”

Bogden turns to her, smirking. He reaches his arm over the table to hold her hand. She doesn't exactly grip back, but doesn't push him away, either. She raises her eyebrows.

“Nic,” he begins, “we think you might have a crush.”

It takes her all of two seconds to realize what he means.

“Me? A crush? On _Sophie_ ? No, no, you _definitely_ — no. There's no _way_ I— no.” She swats Bogden’s hand away, and he snickers. “Believe me, you guys would _not_ be saying that if you actually knew Sophie.”

“I don't know, Nicola,” says Willam, grinning. “Yara’s talked plenty about her. _A roaring bitch_ , supposedly. Almost sounds like your type.”

Yara is Willam’s “perfect flowerchild” of a sister who attends St. Peter's, and as much as Nicola likes her, she will _not_ allow her to make these delicate sorts of decisions for her!

And yet. Thinking about the ordeal that night, Nicola finds herself more interested in than she is upset at the boys’ accusation. Ever since Hort, Nicola’s compared everyone to him and discovered that no one can live up to the exhilaration of first love. But Sophie is… well, _Sophie_ . She's a bitch, yes, but a former bitch. She was nice enough to Nicola, laughed at all her jokes, and, _honestly_ , no one can deny that she is drop-dead gorgeous—

_Shit!_ Nicola buries her face underneath her blankets, even though there's no one around to see her blushing. They were _right._ It seems she does maybe have a thing for Sophie.

Maybe.

* * *

As fate would have it, she runs into Sophie soon after, during an outing with Bogden and Willam

Except. She doesn't exactly run into her. She more or less spots her out of the corner of her eye, hanging with Agatha by the playground at the park they're at.

and

she _kind of_ loses her mind.

“Oh, girl,” sighs Bogden, “you have got it _bad_.”

“Not helping!” she hisses furiously, shooting Sophie a look every few seconds. “Guys, what do I say to her? Please, _help me_.”

“Have you texted with her at all?” wonders Willam.

“I don't have her number!”

“Then ask her for that. And also compliment her clothes. It worked for me,” adds Bogden. Nicola turns toward him and finds him gazing lovingly at Willam as they hold hands, as though trying to prove a point. She grunts, but not too loudly, because it's really hard to be mad at them when they're so damn cute together.

“Fine! I’m going! Don't wish me luck or anything!” Without a second thought, she stands and makes her way over to the girls, calling back to her friends over her shoulder.

She faintly hears Bogden shout “get it, girl!”, but is too frozen with fear all of a sudden to roll her eyes.

She's standing right next to them. And Sophie’s smiling at her. And _why_ is Agatha looking at her like that?

Sophie is asking her what’s up. And she is answering with, “the sky.”

Yeah. She's _so_ got this under control.

* * *

Forty-two minutes later, she is reunited with Bogden and Willam in a depressive funk.

“Oh, no, Bogs,” _tsk_ s Willam as soon as they see her. “We’ve got our work cut out for us.”

“ _Nickie_ ,” Bogden half-whines, half-speaks, sitting down next to her on the park bench. “She's straight, isn't she? I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“Quite the contrary,” Nicola mumbles. “She's very much into girls, and she's very much already dating Beatrix Sylla.”

* * *

It’s actually upsetting at first, knowing Sophie is an option, but not to _her_. Nicola’s friends with Beatrix, goddamnit! How did she not know about them?

But she gets over herself, and sticks to being friends with both girls, casually attempting to ignore how irresistible they are while doing so. She’s learned that she might be a total sucker for blondes.

Of course it's depressing being single, when you're surrounded by happy couples day in and day out. She wants so badly to date someone all of a sudden — a want she’d hardly considered before Hort came into the picture. And, _God_ , does she want to completely destroy Hort, make him hurt just the way she did, make him weep at her feet.

But Nicola’s learning to deal. And Nicola’s learning to move on. She's never suffered heartbreak before, but she knows it isn't equal to the end of all things.

Nicola knows her life isn't over — not if _she_ has anything to say about it.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what to say. Maybe you might take something away from this? There should be more fics on Nicola.


End file.
